Lost in D.C. — Found South Bend home

January 22, 2009|By MAY LEE JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- You can't blame Mussa Muhammad for getting lost in the moment at Tuesday's inauguration ceremonies. "My spirit jumped sky-high the moment President Barack Obama took his oath and became our president," the 83-year-old South Bend resident said. "There was one Caucasian woman to my left and a black woman to my right," he said. "And we just danced and danced." Too late, he realized, he was separated from the group with which he had traveled. And after waiting five hours for him, the bus had to leave without him. "I should have listened to what the organizer told me," Muhammad said. "He told us to write down the bus number and his telephone number, but in all the excitement I forgot," he said. Muhammad had ridden a bus with some 45 residents of South Bend, Elkhart, Michigan and Middlebury. "We waited for five hours before we left Washington, D.C.," said the Rev. Lefate Owens, pastor of Community Missionary Baptist Church of Elkhart. "We voted whether to leave, and no one wanted to leave him in Washington. It was only after talking with his wife, and she assured us he was all right that we left." And, as it turns out, Muhammad was. "I was lost and confused by all the buses," he said. "After realizing I was on the wrong bus, I got off the bus to Pittsburgh and took a cab to the Greyhound bus station and came home." Eventually, he got home at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The colorful character dressed in a black and white suit with red dots (that he said God told him to make) laughed and danced as he talked about his adventure in Washington. He said he was guided home by the kindness and concerns of complete strangers. "My getting lost was nobody's fault, but I had a great time dancing and talking to people," he said. "Everyone was so friendly and supportive. I called the reverend and apologized," he said. The hubbub of getting lost and finding his own way home wasn't going to ruin his day. "President Obama has brought his country hope," Muhammad said. "I never worried when I was lost."